A long time ago, for the very first time, I walked through the two thick wooden doors of a small Catholic private school walked through tall grey halls under a high ceiling of clear and blue stained glass. I walked into a small room at one end of the hall, a room filled with twenty-six other children (about 16 boys, 9 girls), two nice elderly women, and a bunny. It was August 16, 2007, my first day of Second Grade and my first day of school ever at Our Lady of the Assumption School.
It wasn’t bad. It was quite fun, actually. My entire second grade year was fun. It’s a Catholic school, so each year you have Religion as one of your subjects. We had to go to Church in the morning, once a week. Our Lady of the Assumption only had about 250 students, including those from Pre-School, Elementary School, and Middle School. Eventually you know everybody.
Just imagine yourself going through the years as I did. So, second grade year is great. The Third Grade year is alright. Congratulations, now you know everyone. Then the Fourth Grade year comes, and you really get an idea of who your friends are and who your enemies are. Teachers start getting stricter. This is also when a great friend known as Sam, arrives from a distant land (Oklahoma) with his twin brother Jonah. Fifth Grade year comes, a jumbled, disorganized mess. Tight groups are formed, like separate kingdoms or city states. Sex-Ed happens. Work gets harder. And so, finally, Elementary School ends. A happy time. You’ve accomplished something! But what you don’t know is that the true horror has yet to begin.
Middle school. I would like to say that I was exaggerating when I said it was a horror, but if I did I would be either lying or joking. To start off, I will detail the 5 Middle school instructors. Ms. Voigt is the homeroom teacher for Sixth Grade. She taught English, Literature, Vocabulary, and Grade 6 Religion. She and I had some disputes later in middle school, but more on that later. Mrs. Osborne teaches Social Studies and Grade 7 Religion with Mrs. Krakowski, but Mrs. Krakowski only taught on Mondays. Mrs. Osborne was an inspiring and influential individual. She had many stories and she had the most amazing way of teaching. No teacher of history, I think, can ever teach it better than her. I was a favorite of hers in the years I had her. Mrs. Krakowski is a slightly different story. She was the one who held biased debates, gave out tons of unnecessary assignments, those kinds of things. Mrs. Osborne and Mrs. Krakowski were the Seventh Grade homeroom teachers. The Eighth Grade homeroom teacher Mrs. Fussell taught math and also taught Grade 8 Religion. She was probably the coolest and most modern teacher at OLA. And finally, Mrs. Schiemann. She taught Middle School science in a conventional room on the side of the school. It wasn’t even a real classroom. But some of the best times of my life happened in that class. And some of the worst times, too.
At OLA, when you did something considered bad, you ‘got a point off.’ However many points you got off was determined by the teachers. This was the point system, part of the Behavior Grade, which I almost always got a C, D, or F on. The idea is good. If you do not do your work, point off. If you talk too much after the teacher says you should stop, point off. But it wasn’t used that way. It got to the point where if you raised your hand to go to the bathroom during a time designated for just that, you got a point off. Maybe another for asking “Why not?”
So now that we have established the teachers and their subjects and the Point System, we can begin. Sixth grade starts. The assignments are easier than they were in Fifth Grade. It is Mrs. Schiemann’s first year teaching at OLA. New students come, old ones go. There is a divide between the boys and girls. Mrs. Schiemann is a good teacher, but she struggles to maintain control of the classes. Mrs. Osborne yells a lot. Mrs. Voigt’s and Mrs. Fussell’s classes are fun. Then that is all over and Seventh Grade begins. Now, things get rougher. There are now 20 boys and 9 girls. Mrs. Voigt’s class is no longer fun. Mrs. Fussell’s class gets harder. Mrs. Schiemann loses control of the class. A word fights begin among the class. Tensions between the people you have been stuck with in small rooms for years now increase. The girls have a huge fight at the end of the year. A third of their group splits away. Sam and Jonah successfully helped bring about the retirement of Mrs. Osborne and Mrs. Krakowski. I like to think I had a part in that as well. Two other teachers in the school retired that year as well. Seventh Grade ends. Eighth Grade begins. The retired Grade 7 teachers are replaced with Señora Solis, who had the idea of a Middle School Spanish class. She taught Social Studies too. New coming student puts the boys at 21 students, the girls still at 9. Mrs. Fussell’s math gets a little harder. She manages to keep control of the class. She and Señora Solis were the only ones who did that. Ms. Voigt lost control, Mrs. Schiemann lost control. Most of the class no longer cared about the points. There were a series of fights I call the Word Wars. Fights began to get slightly physical. Everything was chaotic. One of the students plowed over a bunch of fifth graders. Another student hit a kindergartener in the face with a basketball. And then it was done, Finals were taken, and Eighth grade was done. The true horror was over and finished. I know I speak of this experience as a horror because that is what it was to me. However when I look back now, I cannot help but realize how much OLA prepared me for high school. It really handed me as good an education as I could have hoped for. I am grateful for that. Now I think of my time at OLA as an adventure, my class against the teachers and the other classes. I am happy Foothill is different.
When one is crammed inside a room with the same annoying, troublemaking people learning the same thing over and over every year, each time from a different old lady, for almost a decade, he literally goes insane. I know what this feels like. I know what it feels like to know something and then have to go and know something else after knowing that other thing for seven years. I know I have done the math. I know I have spent 7 years at OLA, about 7 hours a day. That’s almost 2,000 days, almost 6,600 hours. I know a lot about the Catholic faith now too. I know that in the end all of it ended up being a fun journey, really. All of these things that I know and they are things I will never forget.
It wasn’t bad. It was quite fun, actually. My entire second grade year was fun. It’s a Catholic school, so each year you have Religion as one of your subjects. We had to go to Church in the morning, once a week. Our Lady of the Assumption only had about 250 students, including those from Pre-School, Elementary School, and Middle School. Eventually you know everybody.
Just imagine yourself going through the years as I did. So, second grade year is great. The Third Grade year is alright. Congratulations, now you know everyone. Then the Fourth Grade year comes, and you really get an idea of who your friends are and who your enemies are. Teachers start getting stricter. This is also when a great friend known as Sam, arrives from a distant land (Oklahoma) with his twin brother Jonah. Fifth Grade year comes, a jumbled, disorganized mess. Tight groups are formed, like separate kingdoms or city states. Sex-Ed happens. Work gets harder. And so, finally, Elementary School ends. A happy time. You’ve accomplished something! But what you don’t know is that the true horror has yet to begin.
Middle school. I would like to say that I was exaggerating when I said it was a horror, but if I did I would be either lying or joking. To start off, I will detail the 5 Middle school instructors. Ms. Voigt is the homeroom teacher for Sixth Grade. She taught English, Literature, Vocabulary, and Grade 6 Religion. She and I had some disputes later in middle school, but more on that later. Mrs. Osborne teaches Social Studies and Grade 7 Religion with Mrs. Krakowski, but Mrs. Krakowski only taught on Mondays. Mrs. Osborne was an inspiring and influential individual. She had many stories and she had the most amazing way of teaching. No teacher of history, I think, can ever teach it better than her. I was a favorite of hers in the years I had her. Mrs. Krakowski is a slightly different story. She was the one who held biased debates, gave out tons of unnecessary assignments, those kinds of things. Mrs. Osborne and Mrs. Krakowski were the Seventh Grade homeroom teachers. The Eighth Grade homeroom teacher Mrs. Fussell taught math and also taught Grade 8 Religion. She was probably the coolest and most modern teacher at OLA. And finally, Mrs. Schiemann. She taught Middle School science in a conventional room on the side of the school. It wasn’t even a real classroom. But some of the best times of my life happened in that class. And some of the worst times, too.
At OLA, when you did something considered bad, you ‘got a point off.’ However many points you got off was determined by the teachers. This was the point system, part of the Behavior Grade, which I almost always got a C, D, or F on. The idea is good. If you do not do your work, point off. If you talk too much after the teacher says you should stop, point off. But it wasn’t used that way. It got to the point where if you raised your hand to go to the bathroom during a time designated for just that, you got a point off. Maybe another for asking “Why not?”
So now that we have established the teachers and their subjects and the Point System, we can begin. Sixth grade starts. The assignments are easier than they were in Fifth Grade. It is Mrs. Schiemann’s first year teaching at OLA. New students come, old ones go. There is a divide between the boys and girls. Mrs. Schiemann is a good teacher, but she struggles to maintain control of the classes. Mrs. Osborne yells a lot. Mrs. Voigt’s and Mrs. Fussell’s classes are fun. Then that is all over and Seventh Grade begins. Now, things get rougher. There are now 20 boys and 9 girls. Mrs. Voigt’s class is no longer fun. Mrs. Fussell’s class gets harder. Mrs. Schiemann loses control of the class. A word fights begin among the class. Tensions between the people you have been stuck with in small rooms for years now increase. The girls have a huge fight at the end of the year. A third of their group splits away. Sam and Jonah successfully helped bring about the retirement of Mrs. Osborne and Mrs. Krakowski. I like to think I had a part in that as well. Two other teachers in the school retired that year as well. Seventh Grade ends. Eighth Grade begins. The retired Grade 7 teachers are replaced with Señora Solis, who had the idea of a Middle School Spanish class. She taught Social Studies too. New coming student puts the boys at 21 students, the girls still at 9. Mrs. Fussell’s math gets a little harder. She manages to keep control of the class. She and Señora Solis were the only ones who did that. Ms. Voigt lost control, Mrs. Schiemann lost control. Most of the class no longer cared about the points. There were a series of fights I call the Word Wars. Fights began to get slightly physical. Everything was chaotic. One of the students plowed over a bunch of fifth graders. Another student hit a kindergartener in the face with a basketball. And then it was done, Finals were taken, and Eighth grade was done. The true horror was over and finished. I know I speak of this experience as a horror because that is what it was to me. However when I look back now, I cannot help but realize how much OLA prepared me for high school. It really handed me as good an education as I could have hoped for. I am grateful for that. Now I think of my time at OLA as an adventure, my class against the teachers and the other classes. I am happy Foothill is different.
When one is crammed inside a room with the same annoying, troublemaking people learning the same thing over and over every year, each time from a different old lady, for almost a decade, he literally goes insane. I know what this feels like. I know what it feels like to know something and then have to go and know something else after knowing that other thing for seven years. I know I have done the math. I know I have spent 7 years at OLA, about 7 hours a day. That’s almost 2,000 days, almost 6,600 hours. I know a lot about the Catholic faith now too. I know that in the end all of it ended up being a fun journey, really. All of these things that I know and they are things I will never forget.